heart of gold - The New York City Jazz Record

36 January 2011 | ALLABOUTJAZZ-NEW YORK
Boom Boom Cat
Sunny Murray/John Edwards/Tony Bevan (Foghorn)
by Ken Waxman
Although Sunny Murray, the dean of American free
jazz drumming, is the best-known player here, the
success of Boom Boom Cat depends as much on the
contributions of the other two musicians, more than
mere sidemen. Bassist John Edwards and saxophonist
Tony Bevan are both an integral part of London’s free
music scene, working with everyone from saxophonist
Evan Parker to drummer Steve Noble.
Veterans of thrash-rock ensembles as well as lowkey
improv combos, the two confidently partner with
Murray, who now lives in Paris, every time he visits
Great Britain. Despite being children when Murray
redefined drumming in the mid ‘60s with pianist Cecil
Taylor and saxophonist Albert Ayler, Edwards and
Bevan are as confident in this context as any other.
Bevan’s floor-vibrating bass saxophone gets a major
workout on the shorter “Ballad for G” but his deft
manipulation of all its timbres, as well as those of the
tenor and soprano saxophones, is brought into starker
relief on the nearly hour-long title track.
Perhaps appropriately, Bevan’s intense
flattement, triple-tonguing and pressurized split tones
on tenor recall Ayler’s characteristic work, especially
when the tempo solidifies into a child-like march. His
glossolalia and tension-laden staccatissimo compact
stentorian timbres into screaming altissimo and then
splinter downwards as Edwards keeps the excitement
on a rolling boil with buzzing string slaps. Meanwhile
Murray’s muscular strokes, pops and rumbles advance
with constant stick motion and a fluid, elasticized
rhythm. Edwards leaning into the beat and exposing
harsh passages from the bottom register underlines
Bevan’s lyrical soprano saxophone interlude. Later,
the bassist’s crying spiccato lines make common cause
with the saxophonist as Bevan’s bass horn propels
gusts of pedal-point multiphonics. Subtly backing all
this with minimized polyrhythms, Murray confirms
his mastery with traffic cop-like directions for the
others and a conclusive snare whack.
Respected for his innovations and longevity, this
CD demonstrates that, with the right associates,
Murray’s music is as contemporary today as it was
decades ago.
For more information, visit foghornrecords.co.uk
Saturn Sings
Mary Halvorson Quintet (Firehouse 12)
by Stuart Broomer
Mary Halvorson’s diverse projects range from avantfolk
with Jessica Pavone to the free improvisation of
MAP with Reuben Radding and Tatsuya Nakatani. The
quintet heard here is an expansion of her trio with
bassist John Hébert and drummer Ches Smith,
previously heard on 2008’s Dragon’s Head and the most
jazz-oriented of her groupings. In fact, the trio moves
closer to something resembling the jazz mainstream
with the addition of Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet) and
Jon Irabagon (alto saxophone), both in instrumentation
and in the associations heard in the playing.
Halvorson’s compositions are highly personal
exercises in the jazz tradition, but they’re already the
more skewed parts of that discourse. She notes Yusef
Lateef and Anthony Braxton among sources for
specific pieces, but there are suggestions as well of Eric
Dolphy’s harmonic interests and Booker Little’s
dissonant lyricism. There’s plenty of developed
dialogue here, most notably between Halvorson and
Hébert, but the guitarist is a strong musical
personality, moving smoothly from angular, almost
serial lines to explosive sprays of distorted notes. Her
solos are strange skeins, twisting outward and
fluttering between the more stable parts of the band, as
in her intense adventure on the most recent
composition here, “Sequential Tears in It”. There are
even weird wanderings into microtonality in her
comping behind the horns on “Moon Traps in Seven
Rings”.
It’s the concentrated emotional content of the
group that makes this one of the more original and
accomplished releases of the year, from the support of
Hébert and Smith to Finlayson’s brassy shimmering
lines and Irabagon’s more exploratory playing.
Halvorson already has a reputation as the most
interesting guitarist to arrive in jazz circles in the past
decade. This CD is only likely to enhance that view, as
Halvorson fuses advanced harmony with quartertones.
For more information, visit firehouse12.com. Halvorson is
at Littlefield Jan. 13th. See Calendar.